Hell and Ohio: Stories of Southern Appalachia (review)

group" in the pre-Civil War South who were neither slaves nor slaveowners. —Richard Drake Holbrook, Chris. Hell and Ohio: Stories ofSouthern Appalachia. Frankfort , Kentucky: Gnomon Press, 1995. 140 pages. Paperback $13.50. Chris Holbrook has mastered the short story form. His stories engage our intellects as well as our emotions, and his characters, real as Eastern Kentucky dirt, reflect the troubles of their region. These are sad stories ofpeople who have not grasped what they had hoped for in life but face unemployment, the rootlessness of job-hunting, troubled relationships, despoiled land, displaced memories, and disappointment with one another and with themselves. Holbrook writes with a sure hand and a core knowledge of his land and people and time. Yet, while there is tragedy and a gritty realism in these stories, the author avoids the stereotypic themes of violence, sex, and shiftlessness. Most of his characters, while not doing as well as they wish, are struggling with their destinies, some more effectively than others. Some are resolute in character and virtue, but are caught up in things that resolve and energy cannot overcome handily. Although they are Eastern Kentuckians, their lives reflect national problems of economic insecurity, poverty, environmental degradation , relentless industrial exploitation, class warfare, and the universal pathology of hopelessness and loss. What Holbrook does, however, is to engage our interest and empathy in their lives. In "Hell and Ohio" a man is home from a job in Ohio, meeting friends and kin and family tension. His father, the high school coach, expected great things from him and his brother Todd on the court in high school and later on in college. But neither make's it to college, because of a late-night car wreck that takes family hopes and dreams, even the hope of forgiveness and being easy with one another again. "The Lost Dog" explores the uneasy relationship between a father, who has been absent too much in his truck-driving job, and his small son, who is striving to grow into competence, and who doesn't always please his father. However, they make a beginning. "Unstable Ground" is about a relationship between Estill Kidd, an old man living out his days in the ancestral log house, and Kermit Strong, a fly-by-night strip-miner who is making a mess of the mountains , despoiling the water and ruining Estill's land. It is a juxtaposition of the old and the young, of conservation and despoliation, of foresight and thoughtless pillage—creating mutual contempt. 62 "Fire" is about the old problem of forest fires, accidental or set, and a family with the problem of alcoholism. Welfare checks provide the title for "First of the Month." The story explores the relationship between people who are making it and those who are down and out and offers a reminder of how tenuous economic stability is. It is also about family tensions. A three-generation family deals with change in "Eminent Domain," as the family is scattered for economic reasons, trying to find a graveyard on the family farm that has been forever changed by strip-mining and the construction of a four-lane highway, and hoping that family bonds are stronger than the forces of change. Taulbee is in deep trouble in "As a Snare." After the death of his father, he takes to dope and alcohol and precarious schemes to make a living. In the meantime, his religious family sets out to save him, and we are left wondering how successful they are going to be. "Eulogy" is about the funeral of a beloved grandmother, and Tara's coming home from college in Ohio to a family yearning for her visit but disappointed with her short stay. She has a frightening experience on the way back with the kind of people she is trying forever to escape with a college education. In "The Idea of It," a Kentucky migrant brings his wife and son back to live on the old homeplace, even though his wife had to forsake nurse's training and the son had rather live in Florida. Father and son go looking for a remembered spring but find only a strip-mine silt pond...